Lovely Complex
by deina-kun

Disclaimer: Characters are the creation of Akiyoshi Hongo. The fanfiction is an based on Nakahara Aya's Lovely Complex.

A/N: Sorry about the typos last chapter!

Step 03.

"Taichi-kun really isn't that bad of a guy, isn't he?"

Mimi blinked as she came out of her daydream and rested her eyes on the orange haired tennis ace. She abruptly lifted her head up from the desk and jumped in her seat, making it fall to the ground. She pointed her finger at Sora as she used the other hand to cover her mouth as a reaction from the shocking realization. "Eeehh? Don't tell me, you like him..."

"No, that's not it!" Sora's face blushed red as she waved her hands in front of her, assuring that Mimi was mistaken. "That's not what I meant!"

"Oh, you mean you get along?" Miyako chirped in, smiling at both Mimi and Sora.

"Yeah." Sora had regained her composure. "And he walked me home last night."

She brought her hand up to her chin and contemplated. "I was always afraid of him since what he did back then in elementary school. But he's actually very gentle, and not as scary as I thought he used to be. I don't seem to be scared of him."

'Actually.. I'm scared of him... for what happened back then...' Sora eyes trailed to the floor as she tried not to recall any of those past memories.

"Re...really... Well, that's good..." The hand that Mimi had been twirling her hair around it stopped as she turned her gaze away from Sora. 'This is bad..."

'If this keeps up, Sora-chan may end up as my rival in love... and I may end up losing...' Mimi took herself away from the panic and pointed up her index finger to indicate one incident that deserved credit. "But, didn't you have a great time with Yamato yesterday too? Yeah! That's right! What about Yamato?"

"Yes! It was easy to talk to Ishida-san, too!" Sora responded with her usual sweet smile. "But that's because he and I are so alike. So I really don't see him as a guy after all. And he's got the whole princely thing going on.. Isn't that kind of self-centered?"

Mimi dropped her jaw. 'Yamato... he's sunk to the bottom...'

'If Yamato happened to hear this...' she turned her head and froze. "Wah!"

Yamato's eyes were devoid of emotion and a dark expression loomed across his face as his mouth twitched open. "Good morning..."

"Ya.. Yamato..." Mimi stammered slowly in shock with the worst case scenario happening.

Miyako chirped in excitement. "Good morning!"

Sora smiled, "Good morning, Ishida-san!"

Yamato forced a smile. "Good morning, Takenouchi-san. It was fun yesterday."

"Hehehe," Miyako couldn't help herself, "Ishida-san, you're a very amusing person!"

Yamato's eyes narrowed, but he didn't bother glancing at her and risking making the junior high student crying at the result of his misery. Mimi began to reach out to him with a skeptical look. "Yamato..."

"Is this your form of sympathy?" he snapped coldly, making Mimi agitated, "Go ahead, make fun of me like you've always wanted to, hime-sama."

(A/N: Princess and Prince will now be written in their Japanese translations, hime-sama and ouji-sama, respectively.)

Mimi glared at him. "Get a hold of yourself!"

He dropped her head so that his hair would cover his eyes from her view. "Hey, kouhai. Tell the teacher that ouji-sama will be absent today." he slapped her hand away and walked out of the classroom, opening the sliding door open in a frightening way.

Mimi ground her palms into the desk before her. "Ouji-sama!"

She groaned and made her way to the door, "I'll go after him."

'Ouji-sama... No! It's Yamato! Yamato! Hold on!' Mimi finally saw his figure as she turned around the corner and she subconsciously called out, "Ouji-sama!"

He stopped as her hand grabbed onto his upper arm. "You just called me ouji-sama..."

'What now?' Mimi stared blankly at what she had done. 'What should I say?'

"Er... I..." she stammered, shifting her glance toward anything as as she looked for words.

"What? Are you going to console me now?" Yamato asked with a biting aggravation in his voice.

Mimi froze at his rudeness and felt her cheeks boiling. "What's with you! I was worried about you! What is wrong with you!"

"So what!" Yamato shot her a glare.

"So what if people label you as ouji-sama and think that you're selfish and self-centered because they label you that! Be a man, would you!"

"It's because of everyone's stupid idea of me as a prince that they don't see me as a man let alone see me for who I am!" Yamato retorted. The color from his face flushed out of it after he finished yelling, taking breaths in between.

Mimi stared at him in shock after hearing his response. She wanted to find something to throw at him or hit him with, but the only thing she found in her purse was a water bottle that Miyako had placed in there since she had extra. Mimi took it and dumped the water onto Yamato's hair, matting it all over his face and drenching his white uniform shirt through. "It doesn't matter if they call you ouji-sama or if people think that you're narcissitic or whatever! You're a man as long as you have a -beep-!" (you get the idea )

"Cheh." Yamato turned away with defeat in his eyes. He was still disoriented from her actions. "Girls should use such indecent words."

"Just shut up, will you!" Mimi fumed, "People have always thought of you as a Prince our of jealousy and admiration! What's so embarrassing about being called self-centered by a single girl!"

"If you're going to be bothered by such trivial matters, then you don't even have the right to like anyone!" Mimi paused to take a few breaths and threw the water bottle onto the floor, missing him. "Loser!"

She turned around and began stomping angrily back to the classroom. "Argh, geez! I'm so mad! This is so aggravating!"

Yamato ran his fingers down a long, wet strand of hair before his eyes, still somewhat disoriented from their recent argument. "It seems that idiot's attack turns out to be quite effective..."

"Heh."

'He said we would do our best! That jerk is such a pain! And here I thought he wasn't such a bad person after all... That's it! I'll work harder even if I have to do it alone!' Mimi bumped into something while she was deep in her thoughts. After she managed through her daze, she look up in apology. "Ah? Sorry."

"Eh? Taichi-kun!"

He lifted his hand to give her a quick wave. "'morning!"

Mimi lifted an eyebrow. "Good morning... but... I guess class has already started..."

"Yeah," Taichi scratched the back of his head with his hand, "I'm a little late because of practice."

"You were late the first day too, weren't you?" Mimi asked him with a slight blush on her cheek.

"It's hard to get here on time with soccer practice running late." he replied, shifting his attention around to the unused classrooms and their closed doors. "It's hard to wake up early during the summer too."

"Yeah."

Taichi continued. "It's hard getting up during winter too."

"Oh, I see..." Mimi raised her eyebrow even higher and began looking to see if the teacher was coming out to look for her.

"Are you late too, Tachikawa-san?"

Mimi paused and giggled nervously, "Well, I had something to take care of..."

"Oh yeah," Taichi cut her off and rubbed his chin with his hand as he was trying to think of what to say, "Thanks for inviting me yesterday, it was fun."

"Oh! Don't be so formal!" Mimi blushed and waved her hand in front of her showing that it was no problem.

"Um, hey Mimi, can I ask you something?"

"What?"

Taichi brought his hand to his neck and turned his gaze away from her, "Do you think I'm scary?"

"Huh?..." Mimi stared blankly at him.

"Because yesterday, it looked like Sora-chan was scared." he rubbed his neck in confusion.

Taichi-kun is a pretty nice guy.

'Now that I think about it...' Mimi began knotting a strand of her hair around her finger, "Ah... She's always been a bit scared of boys, I don't think it's your fault."

"Mm."

'It seems like... Sora-chan isn't aware of it herself, but she might've started to like Taichi-kun... What now? What if he! What if he is taken away from me by Sora-chan? What should I do then?'

Taichi shifted his view to the ceiling. "I also have problems talking to girls."

Mimi perked at the strange confession. "Eh? Really?"

"Yeah." he dropped his hand and looked seriously into her eyes. "But... It's different with you... it's easy to talk to you."

"Eh..." Mimi felt her heartbeat give a loud thump, 'What if he likes me!'

"It might be because you're my kouhai that I don't really see you as a girl." he laughed at the thought and patted her on the head.

"Oohh... so that's how it is..." Mimi felt tears coming out of the corners of her eyes. 'Somehow, it feels like I've heard those words somewhere before...'

'How could I even think about it! I'm such an idiot!'

Taichi continued, "Oh yeah, I don't really dislike Sora-san either."

"Err... huh?" Mimi felt as if she had been defeated as she looked at Taichi's reddening face with wide eyes. 'Huh?'

'Huh!'

'HUH!' Mimi cried out without checking her actions. "It couldn't be that... You like Sora-chan?"

"No!" Taichi put his opened hand out in front of him like a stop sign. "What are you saying?"

"But your face is..." Mimi pointed out his deeply red face.

Taichi shook his hand frantically. "No! You're wrong, it's because it's hot in here."

"That... I... I'm going ahead." he turned around and began walking away, but turned around after he took a few steps. "You're wrong!"

'Geeeh... What's this...?' Mimi collapsed to the floor, despairing in her defeat. 'He definitely likes her! Obviously!'

"Hey! Hime-sama!"

Mimi turned toward the voice with tears dotting the corners of her eyes. "Yamato..."

"What happened to the all fired up Mimi all of a sudden? Lost your composure as a Princess?" he stopped, towering in front of her and looked down at her with a smug look as she knelt on the floor, trying to hold back the tears.

She turned away from him. "Sorry, I made a fool out of myself earlier."

"What's that supposed to mean!"

Mimi sighed and stared listlessly at the floor with the most dejected tone Yamato had ever heard, "It didn't work out after all. Usually I wouldn't put it into mind, but being told that by someone you like really hurts..."

'Yamato-kun does like cute girls after all... with me being the underclassman that I am, it's not surprising that he doesn't see me as a girl... I'm just a rival to him in this silly popularity race.. a girl like me...' Mimi's thoughts stopped cold as a trickle of water ran down her head and her neck, seeping into her school uniform.

"Idiot." he dropped something on to her head and a water bottle bounced and rolled to the side.

"That hurts!" Mimi cried as she tended to the spot where he dropped the bottle on her head. "What the hell are you doing! My hair..!"

"Are you just going to stay like this so that people won't be able to tell the water apart from your tears?" he asked looking down at her. She didn't look up. In her mind, she was flashing back to when she was young and crying out in the elementary school's playground...

"Wahhh...!"

"Mimi-chan.." a young boy stopped in front of her and gave her a light knock on the head. "You don't look good with a crying face."

"But.." she sniffed and gave a short cough, rubbing her eyes of her tears.

"It's ugly." he said, looking sternly at her, but gave her a smile afterward, "You look prettier with a smiling face."

She grew wide-eyed at what he said and quickly dried her tears away. "Then.. I promise never to cry again!"

"He he he.. That was payback for earlier!" he pointed to his still wet hair. After Mimi had calmed down a little bit, still somewhat devastated over her wet hair, Yamato clenched his fist and drew out it in front of him. "I'm not going to give up Sora-san! I'll try even harder tomorrow!"

Mimi stood up and wringed her hair of some excess water. "Yamato.."

"I'm not wrong at all." he scoffed, "'If you're going to let yourself be bothered by such trivial matters, they you don't even have the right to like anybody.'"

He drew his hand to cover his face in mock sadness, "Those were my grandfather's last words when he passed away..."

Mimi fumed at his lies and tried to get her rightful credit out of him, "You liar! I just said that!"

"So you remember your own words now?" he grinned playfully at her snarling.

"I'm glad you're here with me." Mimi paused and blinked at him, taken by surprise with his change of attitude. A wide smile spread across his face as he stood in front of his with his hands in his pant pockets as he continued, "If I were all on my own I would probably have given up long ago while hating myself."

'Yamato...' Mimi felt herself tear up and at this, Yamato turned return back to the classroom, waving good-bye with his back turned to her as he walked away.

'Even though we keep upsetting each other... but still I can understand him better than anyone else... Our worries are the complete opposites to on another's. However, we both have a serious complex about our social status in high school... So when I hear Yamato say that he'll do his best... I can't help but feel that I need to do my best as well...' she took a deep breath and called out to him, "Alright then! I'll do my best too!"

Yamato turned around to her beaming face.

'He also put some sense into me with that water of his...' she ran to catch up to him and walked by his side. Yamato whispered to her proposing that the both do their best and gave her a pat on her head.

She smiled. 'If I were to give up, then I would probably never rid myself of the complex being a kouhai has brought upon me.'

The slid the door open and walked in together, "Sorry we're late!"

The teacher dropped the chalk in his hand as he turned to see his late students with surprise in his face, "Why are you this late?"

"We were discussing what to do in our next act!" Yamato joked while Mimi stared blankly at the lie.

The teacher gave out a sigh and took the chalk from the floor, "Alright then, be seated!"

While Mimi was walking to her desk she saw Taichi's face looking up at her in the seat behind her desk. Silence lasted for a brief 3 seconds while they had a stare down. She took her seat and correctly anticipated that Taichi was going to talk about what happened earlier. His face was red, "You're wrong. It's not like that!"

"I know, I know."

To her right, a girl sitting behind Yamato poked him, "Yamato-kun, why is your hair all soaked?"

He laughed and replied back, "You could say it's a new way of cheering people on."

"Huh?"

As he laughed at the girl's confusion, he was beginning to turn his head back to the front of the class, but paused when he noticed that Mimi had been watching him. She perked and her eyes began to grow wide in embarrassment.

Noticing her reaction, he returned her gaze with a wide grin.

Will the cooperation between this unusual duo work out?
The future lies ahead of them.

A/N: Give me your thoughts on who the boy in Mimi's flashback to her childhood should be! Stay tuned for the next arc. :)